Esotericism and Narrative: The Occult Fiction of Charles Williams
Series: - Aries Book Series, Volume: 24
Esotericism and Narrative: The Occult Fiction of Charles Williams situates the life and fiction of the Inkling Charles Williams in the network of modern occultism, with special focus on his initiatory experiences in A.E. Waite’s Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. Aren Roukema evaluates fictional projections of magic, kabbalah, alchemy and ritual experience in Williams’s seven novels of supernatural fantasy. From this specific analysis, he develops more broadly applicable approaches to the serious expression of religious experience in fiction. Roukema shows that esoteric knowledge has frequently been blurred into fiction because of its inherent narrativity and adaptability, particularly by authors already attracted to the syncretism, multivalence and lived fantasy of the modern occult experience.
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Aren Roukema is a doctoral researcher at Birkbeck, University of London. He is Co-Editor of Correspondences and has published on esotericism and fiction in The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–1947 (Routledge, 2018), Journal of Inklings Studies, and North Wind.
Acknowledgements Abbreviations
Introduction: Through the Portal Williams and the Occult: Some Discursive Complications Encountering the Occult in Williams’s Fiction: A Literary/Historical Method
1 Life and Times: Christian Occultism in Modern England A Life in Myth “But about This Reality of Yours …” The “Dead Master” Arthur Edward Waite Occult Imagination and the Secret Tradition Constructing a Cordon Sanitaire Christian Occultism
2 The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross: A Modern Occult Experience Masonic Rosicrucianism The Paths of the Tree of Life The F.R.C. and the Golden Dawn: The Adeptus Minor Rituals
3 Fiction and Experience The Unbearable Lightness of Fiction Fantastic Narratology: The Liminality of Esoteric Knowledge The Novels—Intrusions of the Supernatural The Gothic Occult In the Network of Occult Fiction The Novels of an Adeptus Exaltatus “The End of Desire”—The Discovery of the Higher Self Occult Fiction, Occult Life
4 Kabbalah: Charles Williams and the Middle Pillar A.E. Waite and Modern Occult Kabbalah Becoming Shekinah: Charles Williams and the Middle Pillar The Greater Trumps Kabbalistic Eros and Romantic Theology
5 The High-Priestess: Charles Williams and Modern Magic Magic in the West The “High-Priestess of Heaven” Ritual Semiotics and the Magical Imagination
6 A Magical Life in Fiction Active Imagination Active Will The Way of P’o-lu Art Magic: Sex, Poetry, Consciousness Reanimation: Enchantment and Empowerment Interpretive Drift: The Development of a Modern Christian Magic
7 The Transmutation of Charles Williams: Spiritual and Literary Alchemy From Metallurgy to Particle Physics: A Brief History of Alchemy Influences: Lee, Waite, Atwood Rosicrucian Alchemy The Great Work in Fiction A Literary Alchemist
Epilogue: The Coagulation of Belief
Bibliography Index
Introduction: Through the Portal Williams and the Occult: Some Discursive Complications Encountering the Occult in Williams’s Fiction: A Literary/Historical Method
1 Life and Times: Christian Occultism in Modern England A Life in Myth “But about This Reality of Yours …” The “Dead Master” Arthur Edward Waite Occult Imagination and the Secret Tradition Constructing a Cordon Sanitaire Christian Occultism
2 The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross: A Modern Occult Experience Masonic Rosicrucianism The Paths of the Tree of Life The F.R.C. and the Golden Dawn: The Adeptus Minor Rituals
3 Fiction and Experience The Unbearable Lightness of Fiction Fantastic Narratology: The Liminality of Esoteric Knowledge The Novels—Intrusions of the Supernatural The Gothic Occult In the Network of Occult Fiction The Novels of an Adeptus Exaltatus “The End of Desire”—The Discovery of the Higher Self Occult Fiction, Occult Life
4 Kabbalah: Charles Williams and the Middle Pillar A.E. Waite and Modern Occult Kabbalah Becoming Shekinah: Charles Williams and the Middle Pillar The Greater Trumps Kabbalistic Eros and Romantic Theology
5 The High-Priestess: Charles Williams and Modern Magic Magic in the West The “High-Priestess of Heaven” Ritual Semiotics and the Magical Imagination
6 A Magical Life in Fiction Active Imagination Active Will The Way of P’o-lu Art Magic: Sex, Poetry, Consciousness Reanimation: Enchantment and Empowerment Interpretive Drift: The Development of a Modern Christian Magic
7 The Transmutation of Charles Williams: Spiritual and Literary Alchemy From Metallurgy to Particle Physics: A Brief History of Alchemy Influences: Lee, Waite, Atwood Rosicrucian Alchemy The Great Work in Fiction A Literary Alchemist
Epilogue: The Coagulation of Belief
Bibliography Index
All interested in modern occultism, esotericism, magic, kabbalah, and alchemy, researchers of Charles Williams and/or the Inklings in general, and theorists interested in the relationship between religious expression/experience and narrative.